The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus.
Conventionally, there are technologies for appropriately downloading firmware to image forming apparatuses such as multifunction peripherals, copying machines, and printers.
For example, a technology is known in which in the case where an image processing apparatus connected to a network is to rewrite firmware, if an administrator obtains information regarding the latest version thereof from a website, the image processing apparatus downloads the latest firmware based on the information, to update the firmware for the image forming apparatus.
However, the technology described above can download only the latest firmware. In addition, the above technology cannot download appropriate firmware in accordance with the environmental condition of the image forming apparatus.
Since the image forming apparatus is very sensitive to the influence of the ambient environmental condition during operation, the performance of the image forming apparatus greatly changes depending on the installation environment and the seasonal condition. Therefore, the image forming apparatus has incorporated a correction control function therein so as to be able to ensure constant quality under an environment within a specific condition range even if some change has occurred in the environmental condition.
However, if the environment is within the specific condition range, the above-described correction control can be performed by use of regular firmware, but the environment is outside the specific condition range, the correction control cannot be performed by use of the regular firmware. Thus, there are cases where the manufacturer creates firmware that is dedicated to such specific environment and that includes the correction control function, and releases the dedicated firmware on the website.